


Tantalus

by orphan_account



Category: Newsies (1992), Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Character Death, M/M, Slurs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-09
Updated: 2013-09-09
Packaged: 2017-12-26 03:04:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/960839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>David hates him, wants <em>so badly</em>  to hate him, but they are Drift Compatable.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tantalus

He is impossible.

Jack Kelly, who thinks this is a game and not a war.

Jack Kelly: cocky, impulsive, reckless, and everything David isn’t.

Jack Kelly: a grown-ass man who still calls himself ‘Cowboy’. (Les would have loved him, David thinks, but that’s a train of thought just a bit too painful to dwell on).

And David hates him, wants _so badly_ to hate him, but they are Drift Compatable.

~~~

They spar, because it’s easier than talking.

Because communication between one who only speaks when spoken to and one who talks for hours without really saying anything seems as unnecessary as it is unpleasant, but they’re expected to get to know each other _somehow_.

Because they have more in common when they aren’t talking, and Kelly is far less irritating when he’s actually putting his skills to use.

And maybe, just maybe, David can understand how such an apparent loose cannon has managed to make it this far up in the academy.

They are well-matched, though their methods differ. David is a strategist. A planner. Kelly’s skill seems to come from knowledge made implicit years and years ago, that has been honed with time and perfected through training. Each brings something different to the table, which is exactly how Pentecost wants it. Once they’ve drifted, they’ll have a much broader array of skills than either could supply alone.

But they can only go so long before both are exhausted, and it seems Kelly talks even more when he’s tired than when he’s fully charged. And maybe it shouldn’t aggravate David as much as it does, but he’s tired too, and the excited, childish way his companion carries on about fighting and Jaegers and Kaiju in particular just grates at his nerves until he can no longer stand it.

“Is all of this just a game to you?” he accuses, and watches the grin slide from Kelly’s face.

His partner stiffens, eyes narrowing. “How do you mean?”

“People have _died_. Hundreds of thousands of people, and not just civilians. _Pilots_ , like us. We could be gone by next month, and you act like that’s something to be _excited_ about—”

Kelly has him pinned against the wall before he can even finish talking, his left forearm slammed across David’s chest as if to prevent him from escaping.

“You’re an orphan, aren’t you,” he says quietly, dangerously.

David nods, but Kelly just keeps staring at him.

“Manhattan,” he elaborates, finally. “I was away at school, but, ah, my family, they were all still there when … when Enceladus …… The Kaiju Shelter was crushed. No one survived. My parents, my sister, my … my brother,”

“Sorry to hear that,” he says, surprisingly gently, but his hold doesn’t loosen. 

There’s another pause, and then he changes the subject rather abruptly. “Do you remember Cavalry?”

“Of course I do,” David replies, puzzled. “It’s only been a year since it went down, hasn’t it?”

Kelly swallows, takes in a shaky breath. “Well Spot and Race were the closest thing I’ve ever had to family. So don’t you _dare_ act like you’re the only one around here who’s lost something. Just ’cause I don’t walk around with a chip on my shoulder like you doesn’t mean I don’t know what’s at stake here.”

He stalks out, slamming the door behind him, and David can still feel the press of his arm burning across his chest.

~~~

They are strapped in, wired up, someone in the background is repeating everything they’ve been hearing for the past few weeks, months, years about clearing the mind, trusting each other, don’t chase the rabbit, sharing headspace will be disorienting at first, try to focus, _do not chase the rabbit_ , you boys ready?, Initiating Neural Handshake, and

_He is four and only just realizing that she isn’t coming back_

He is eleven years old the first time someone calls him a faggot

_“I don’t wanna see you hangin’ around that Conlon kid anymore, you hear? He’s more trouble than he’s worth”_

He should have known better, he’d always known better, he knew not to pick fights because he’d never win, but then they’d insulted his _sister_

_His father is holding him, crying, apologizing, saying how he knows it’s hard to understand, but he only punishes him because he loves him, because he wants to make him into a better man_

His little brother comes home from school one day asking what so-and-so meant when they called him a sheeny

_He starts picking fights with the other kids at school so his teachers will stop asking where the bruises are coming from_

He is about to begin his senior year of high school when K-Day happens, and he knows he isn’t a fighter, he wants nothing to do with any of it, he chooses a college in the Midwest and hopes that he’ll be safer

~~~

He is shaking and someone is calling his name, and his body is too small, too constricting. His limbs feel foreign, and something’s _missing_ that’s scratching at the back of his mind, and Jack is only just waking up and there’s a woman leaning over him taking his blood pressure.

Jack opens his eyes all the way and flinches, and David has a brief, unfamiliar memory of a pushy doctor asking too many questions about his father.

“Jack,” he says, his voice hoarse, and Jack gives him a small smile.

“First-name basis now, huh Davey?”

“Don’t push it.”

~~~

David had always been able to fall asleep the moment he laid down, but after their second attempt to drift he finds himself lying awake for hours, just staring at the ceiling and wondering if Jack is sleeping better now that he’s sleeping worse.

Jack slips into a New York accent every now and again, and David finds himself craving cigarettes even though he’s never smoked in his life.

Jack picks up his coffee drinking habits, enough so that he craves it but not enough to enjoy the taste. David takes his black, while Jack adds copious amounts of cream and sugar.

The dreams start after their third drift. The few hours of sleep he can manage a night are filled with people he’s never met, and suddenly he can match names to faces when Jack mentions people from his past.

They’ve begun moving like one another, almost without realizing it. David’s movements are looser, more relaxed. Jack holds himself straighter, doesn’t slouch nearly as much as he used to. When they walk side-by-side, they almost look as though they are being controlled by the same puppet-master.

They keep sparring, but it’s different now that they’ve been inside each other’s heads. It’s harder to best Jack now that he knows David’s strategies. When he finally does catch him off guard, he flips Jack flat on his back with such force that he can feel the phantom thud ringing through his own nerves. Jack tips back his head and laughs, and it’s a full-bodied kind of laugh that David hasn’t heard in years. He gets to his feet, pulling his shirt down from where it had rucked up around his waist, exposing soft, tanned skin, and the name _Tantalus_ appears in the corner of David’s brain. He pushes it down and tries not to think about it again.

~~~

He’s having Jack’s nightmare again, reliving the moment he heard about Spot and Race and howling until his throat burns, and then everything shifts, and suddenly he’s looking into his own face, eyes burning blue, and laughing because _oh_ he has _MISSED_ this. Because he hasn’t fought like this since _Spot_ and hasn’t cared like this since Cavalry went down, and there may be monsters inside of him, but those are nothing compared to the monsters that are out there, that are his to take on, and if he can defeat _them_ , then taking care of the ones inside his head will be _nothing_. And he laughs because he is on the floor, because he’s been swept off his feet by a beautiful boy who is coiled just a bit too tightly, and it’s okay because Jack is coming apart at the seams and together they might just make a functioning whole.

~~~

They’re moving to Los Angeles tomorrow, to Shatterdome, and David would be lying if he said he wasn’t terrified. Jack is nervous too, his unease prickling at the back of David’s mind like a stone caught in his shoe.

It’s two in the morning, and David doesn’t know if it’s the nerves or Jack’s insomnia that’s keeping him awake.

It’s two in the morning and he has completely run out of menial tasks to keep himself busy and he _knows_ Jack is still awake too, and somehow he finds himself standing outside his door, mustering up the courage to knock.

Jack isn’t wearing a shirt when he opens the door, and that name floats to the front of David’s mind once again. _Tantalus_. The man doomed to an eternity of staring at food he couldn’t touch. And normally David would be a bit more concerned about the fact that he is relating to a man who cut up his children and fed them to gods, but never in his life has he had to try so hard to resist reaching out and touching.

Jack sits down on the bed, motioning for David to do so as well.

“Nervous?” He asks, and his accent is caught somewhere between Texas and New York.

“Just a little. Possible imminent death just gives me the jitters, that’s all,” David says, but there’s no bite to his words.

“We’ll be okay,” Jack says with certainty, and slings an arm around him reassuringly.

David’s hands act of their own accord, and he finds himself wrapping an arm around Jack’s waist in return.

His fingers begin tracing small circles on Jack’s side, and Jack’s eyes flutter closed. When Jack makes a small noise in the back of his throat, there’s no going back.

David is straddling Jack’s hips before he even has time to process what he’s doing, and, with the image of Jack breathless and beneath him after sparring fresh in his brain, David laces his fingers through Jack’s hair and _pulls_ , baring his throat.

Jack gasps, grinding up against David’s hips as Davey’s mouth finds the curve where shoulder meets neck and scrapes his teeth against tender skin.

Jack leans up to kiss him on the mouth, parting David’s lips with his own, murmuring “I need you, _god_ , Davey. I _need_ you,” between kisses, and later, hungrily, “I want you inside me,” against his ear.

And it’s been a while, it’s been years for both of them, but like with sparring, they find their own rhythm.

~~~

They are in Jack’s bed and still haven’t managed to fall asleep, but Jack’s head is resting against David’s shoulder and David’s hands are tracing lazy circles on the small of his back, and for the first time in months he feels _content_.

Tantalus may never have gotten what it was he most desired, but David isn’t Tantalus any longer. Once he rises in a few hours, he’ll be heading off to Los Angeles and he will fight monsters. He is Odysseus, Hercules, Jason, Perseus. He will be a hero.


End file.
